AFRICAN-CARIBBEAN RESISTANCE THROUGH SPORT: FROM HEADLEY TO RICHARDS TO LARA
At the turn of the twentieth century, sport in the Caribbean, particularly
cricket and football, was transposed into this geopolitical space by British
colonists who took their games wherever they conquered. The games of
golf, tennis, cricket, and football were popular among the colonialist and
elite groups of Caribbean society, and provided the ground for socialization
and recreation. However, for the oppressed population, the games of
tennis and golf were out of reach leaving cricket as the game of the
masses. Cricket provided the arena for contestation and competition
between the races within a “theoretically level” framework or field of
play. More significant, cricket provided an arena for expressing anticolonial
resistance feelings in a socially acceptable manner.
EARLY WEST INDIAN CELEBRITIES (HEROES)
In the Caribbean, sport as a “site” of contestation and resistance to the
dominant ideology of white racism took root on the (playfield) cricket
grounds of the territories of the British West Indies (BWI). Sport has
been a “ platform” for the internationalizing of political views held by
small nations (e.g., Cuba).
Cricket, as C. L. R. James wrote, was more than a struggle between
bat and ball. It was a representation of those who led and those
who were led, between colonizer and the colonized. Cricket pits the
races against each other in intense rivalry. The clash of race and class
in cricket had a stimulating and unifying effect when it is played by the
West Indies, and allows for all sorts of vicarious resolutions in the
mind, in victory or defeat. Chris Searle, an English intellectual wrote:
There is no doubt that for some English and Australian cricket experts,
sunk into the conservative traditions of the sport, the prospect of an exceptionally
fast Caribbean man with a cricket ball carries the same threat
as a rebellious, anti-imperial black man with a gun. They want him suppressed,
disarmed—he fits nowhere into their rules and ways of the
game [since often they have no counterpunch] and only challenges them.
They hate to be challenged especially in their own creation—
cricket
The first generation of sporting/cricket heroes include L. W. Constantine,
George “Atlas” Headley, and Frank Worrell. George Headley’s double
century at Lords and Frank Worrell’s rise to become the first black
captain (leader) of a West Indies team shattered the myth constructed
by Victorian England that blacks can neither “lead” nor “bat.” West Indians
challenged the colonialists at “their game” as sport/cricket became
a tool of defiance/resistance. Undoubtedly, cricket became an instrument
of power, political ideology, and social transformation.
Hillary Beckles (Beckles and Stoddart 1995, 242) in Liberation Cricket
notes: “It was inevitable that the politicization of West Indian cricket
should spill over into the realms of nationalism, ideology, party politics,
and international relations.”
REBEL AND REVOLUTIONARIES
West Indies cricket had been a champion in the struggle against
apartheid. When other countries were championing the cause of “constructive
engagement” with apartheid in cricket, the West Indies stood
firm by the sporting ban. Within this context, it is worthy to mention
the career of one of the finest batsmen to emerge in West Indies
cricket.
Lawrence George “Yagga” Rowe was born on January 8, 1949, in
Kingston, Jamaica. Rowe was an elegant right-handed batsman described
by his teammate, Michael Holding, as “the best batsman I ever
saw.” Rowe made his debut for Jamaica in 1968–1969. In 1972, he made
history on his Test debut v. New Zealand (in Kingston) scoring 214 and
100 not out, the first time that a cricketer had scored a double and single
century on Test debut. It also gave him a batting average of 314 after
his first Test match. Rowe played thirty Test matches scoring a total of
2,047 runs at an average of 43. He was known to whistle whilst he batted
though he seemed to be injury prone; he suffered problems with his
eyesight and was allergic to grass.
Undoubtedly,Yagga Rowe was a West Indies batting hero (in the days
before Vivian Richards) emerging from the graasroots of Jamaica to
became infamous in 1982–1983 when he led a rebel tour to
South Africa (during the era of apartheid) when they were isolated
from world sport. When agents of South African cricket came calling in
December 1982, he volunteered to lead a rebel West Indian team there.
Rowe suffered the indignity of being labeled “honorary white” and aggravated
a political stance articulated by African-Caribbean people
throughout the diaspora (see Wikipedia).
The West Indian public were outraged by the tour and Rowe himself
was ostracised in Jamaica. I argue that the spirit of African resistance was
breached by a group of cricketers who failed to comprehend to terrain of
sport and its relation to the stuggle for liberation, equal rights. and justice.
Issac Vivian Alexander Richards was born on March 7, 1952, at St.
John’s, Antigua. Richards made his Test debut at Bangalore against
India in 1974–1975, and his one-day international debut against Sri
Lanka in the World Cup of 1975. His last Test was against England at
the Oval in 1991 and his last ODI was at Lord’s in the same series.
For more than fifteen years, Richards dominated cricket—the traditional
as well as the instant version. The very sight of him walking in
with his famous swagger, chewing gum, his huge shoulders loosening
up for action, sent shivers down the spines of international bowlers. He
could play all the shots in the game.
Apart from his exciting style of play, Richards is held in great esteem
for his personal principles in refusing a “blank cheque” offer to play for
a rebel West Indian squad in racist South Africa during the apartheid
era in 1983, and again in 1984. According to Richards in the foreword
to Beckles and Stoddard’s Liberation Cricket: “I carried my bat for the
liberation of Africa and other oppressed people everywhere. The principle
of fair play so deeply rooted within cricket values must be fought
for and defended at all times” (1995).
Richards, when asked who he’d like to be reborn as, mentioned Bob
Marley and Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, JAH Rastafari. Of note,
fast bowler Anderson Montgomery Roberts of Antigua was the first
West Indies cricketer to refuse a handsome monetary offer to play
cricket in apartheid South Africa.
GLOBALIZATION/POSTAPARTHEID ERA
The demise of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics ushered in a
“new” geopolitical, socioeconomic, and military “order” termed global-
ization. Within this new paradigm, sport in the Caribbean, in this instance,
West Indies cricket, faced new challenges, among them the
quantum increase in media attention, sponsorship, and individual financial
remunerations as well as the increase usage of video technology.
Brian Charles Lara made his international debut during the West Indies
tour of Pakistan in 1990–1991. Brian Lara is one of the most gifted
batsmen in the history of cricket. He is in the line of greatness that produced
Headley, the three Ws, Sobers, and Richards [AU5:](King and
Laurie, 2004, 126). He previously held the highest Test score, 375, and
currently holds the highest first-class score, 501.
The emergence of Brian Charles Lara parallels the introduction of
the millionaire culture–Hollywood system of celebrity to sport in the
Caribbean, challenging the dynamics of work and play, the basis for
celebrity and heroism, resistance and accommodation, including the
new/old social responsibilities of star/celebrated player. Lara became
the first millionaire West Indian cricketer with endorsements, advertising,
and promotional contracts following in the manner that runs
flowed from his bat. Many observers have speculated that this new orientation
created new attitudes and feelings of “alienation” between elements
of the cricket fraternity including fans, administrators, Lara,
and a few teammates.
The release of longtime South African political prisoner Nelson Mandela
diffused much of the tension/resistance between the black populations
in particular and the international community in general against
the apartheid South African government. This act can be seen as the
forerunner to the reentry of South Africa to the international sporting
community.
CONCLUSION
Sport has been a vehicle for the social and economic movement of the
poor and working class, the oppressed and dispossessed peoples of the
diaspora. By extension, the sport heroes that emerge from these said
classes represent living symbols of resistance that become transformed
into celebrity status.
I conclude that the neoliberal-globalization paradigm has replaced
the oppressor/oppressed, domination/resistance framework, obfuscating
the ideological connections of defiance and resistance to the field
of play; shifting identities with diminishing sociopolitical agendas;
moving from resistance to accommodation to assimilation.
The resistance ethos of Caribbean cricket has undergone a revolutionary
downward spiral with losing becoming a norm nurtured by
mediocrity, carelessness, and individualism.
I argue that playing for love of the game has been replaced with playing
for the love of money. I further argue that there is not much credence
given to the concept of “loyalty to nation,” as many people do not
feel obliged to commit themselves to country.
In this regard, Benn and Hall (2000, 94) in Globalisation: A Calculus
of Inequality observe:
Old certainties and hierarchies of identity are called into question in a
world of dissolving boundaries and disrupted continuities. Thus, in a
country that is now a container of African and Asian cultures, can the
meaning of what it is to be British (West Indian/Caribbean) ever again
have the old confidence and surety it might once have had?” . . . Is it at
all possible, in global times, to sustain a coherent and unified sense of
identity? Continuity and historicity of identity are challenged by the immediacy
and intensity of global cultural confrontation (2000, 198)[AU6:]
One could argue that the racial pride, ruthlessness and efficiency of
the Jack Johnson to George Headley to Vivian Richards era has been
replaced by materialism, laziness, and individual drive for “superstardom.”
Cricket, for example, as the national pastime of the West Indies,
is no longer an arena to demonstrate resistance against an oppressive
order. It would appear that the motive for competing has shifted from
“race pride and respect” to money, bling,3 and more money (implication
of basketball).
Within the context of globalization, are we witnessing the destruction
of the underpinnings of African-Caribbean resistance culture? Are
we witnessing the metamorphosis of African resistance culture to the
celebrity culture of Hollywood?
It is evident that once West Indian players decide to put personal
gain over regional interests, Caribbean people will witness the continued
“softening” of the regional team, playing without the cultural-re-
sistance spearhead developed and exhibited during the era of Jack
Johnson through George Headley to Vivian Richards.
I argue that the diaspora requires sport celebrities to be more conscious
of the historical and cultural context in which sport operates,
and their psychological, social, economic, and political responsibilities
to the people of the region. I wish to concur with Brian Stoddart’s
(Beckles and Stoddart 1995, 395) observation: “The contours of the
modern game as played and conveyed by Caribbean people are still essentially
about struggle in one form or another, and therein lies the ultimate
message.”
